


Everything Is Not Fine

by NugatorySheep



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Connie does not get seriously hurt, F/M, Gen, I'll tag this better later, Multi, Nightmares, Not Beta Read, Other, Stop finding excuses to kill her plz, Suicidal Thoughts, The Caretaker (the artist! AO3! CHRIST! WHAT IS THIS FREEFORM GARBAGE?), Ya boi is on the struggle bus, character study kinda idk, corruption but its a slower burn, it aint fun either, just know that while this isn't as dark as some other fics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29031918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NugatorySheep/pseuds/NugatorySheep
Summary: Steven wakes up after the intervention with a collar around his neck, his hands in chains, and no memory of how he got there. A different take on what happens after "Everything Is Fine".
Kudos: 26





	1. Denial unravelling

Everything is fine. That's what he kept telling himself the entire day. 

If he thought it enough times, said it enough times, then it would be true. He could fix any mistake, any problem, any person, with just a little bit of time and effort. He helps people and fixes things. That's what he was good at, after all. 

It worked so perfectly before. So why wasn't it working now?

When Steven came back from Little Homeworld earlier, he wasn't prepared to find the gems, Connie, and his father waiting for him, and he was even less prepared when they started bombarding him with worries and concerns about his mental health. He tried to convince them that there was nothing wrong and that things would eventually go back to normal; that this was just another challenge for him to overcome, like all the ones before it.

His words came out in a rambling torrent of half-apologies and half-confessions instead of the reassuring speech he intended, and the more he talked, the more the expressions of his friends and family shifted from worry to horror, and the more he panicked. He was no longer standing, any shred of confidence he had before now long gone, and he could feel everyone else's eyes drilling into him, silently accusing him of what he already knew to be true: he was a fraud. A liar. **A monster.**

"I'm a monster," he whimpered, barely audible. His gemstone reacted almost immediately, all of his pain, anxiety, and self-hatred manifesting across his body in a horrible, twisted fashion. Light pink scales erupted from his skin, hard as the gemstone embedded in his belly. Though he couldn’t see them, he could feel the weight of several shards of crystal emerge from his forehead and all along his spine.

The next several moments were a blur. He didn't hear the concerned cries of the gems or the terrified screaming from his father, and he didn't feel the walls of the beach house crumble and shatter all around him. There was only one thought running on repeat through his head as charged through the beach house's front door: _Everything is not fine_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a small introduction, mostly a written description of what happens in the episode, with the small change of Steven's corruption not completely taking him over. Dunno how often I'll update this, or even how long it's gonna be. I just have the broad strokes planned out. 
> 
> If there's any mistakes please let me know, yeah? I normally have my boyfriend look over stuff before I post it but that's mostly for spelling.


	2. Post awareness confusions

The next time he woke up, it was in a dark, mostly featureless room on a plain white bed. There was a mild, low hum radiating throughout the space. At first, he thought he might be in a hospital, but the large pillars, metallic walls, and lack of windows reeked of gem architecture. He tried to recall what had happened to leave him in such an unfamiliar place, but it was entirely fuzzy, and he struggled to determine whether or not his memories were real or just dreams. 

Steven went to pull the blanket off of him, but instead of feeling wool, there was only metal. Alarmed, he kicked the blanket off with his feet and looked over his hands, which were locked up in some sort of half-pill-shaped metal restraints. They were oddly lightweight for being so large. 

He was also still faintly glowing pink. Wonderful.

Almost automatically, he got out of bed and made his way over to the nearest reflective surface. His heart sank instantly upon viewing his reflection, and the white, diamond-shaped pupils in the center of his eyes. 

He _hated_ those eyes.

Around his mouth was a dark-grey piece of cloth, and around his neck, a collar made of the same metal as the hand restraints. 

There were muffled voices coming from outside the room. Some were foreign to him, but he could pick out Garnet, Amethyst, and Connie, and more importantly, not Pearl. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but based on their tone it didn't sound good. Steven went up to the door to hear their conversation better.

"I don't understand, you said he'd be awake by now!" Amethyst whined.

"I said he might be," Garnet corrected her. "We don't know how his human half will handle his gem being cracked, among other things. It's only been a week, be patient."

 _Cracked_ ? Steven thought to himself, instinctively reaching for his gemstone, _but... how?_ With some difficulty, he managed to lift his shirt enough to see his gem. It didn't appear to have any cracks across its surface, but it was pulsing and flickering in a way he'd never seen before. In uneven splotches around it were small, light pink scales. 

"W-what...?" he whispered, though it came out muffled. His memories of the past few weeks became more clear, and he started examining other areas of his body looking for anything else wrong, totally unaware of how much noise the chains on his hands were making. In his panic, he didn't notice the voices outside fall silent. It wasn't until Connie spoke, her voice low and breathless, that he realized his mistake.

"Is... is he awake?" she asked.

"Hah! I told you!" Amethyst said, not even trying to keep her voice down.

The next voice was one Steven didn't recognize, but they sounded feminine, so he assumed they were a gem. "Keep it down, will you! What if he can hear you?"

"Well then let 'em! I wanna talk to him!"

"No. Connie should go in first," said Garnet. 

"Of course she should..." grumbled Amethyst. Although he couldn't see her, Steven was willing to bet she was rolling her eyes.

He could hardly make out Garnet's next words. "She's the least likely to upset him." 

The next several sentences of conversation were too quiet to hear, so he went to the closest pillar and leaned against it, his mind racing, trying to piece together the fragmented memories of how he got to be here. He recalled the intervention after he came back from Homeworld (and the disastrous meeting with White before that), as well as his body becoming warped from the whirlwind of emotions he felt. What exactly happened after that was only in bits and pieces; flashes of the beach, the gems, Connie, and his father.

The sound of Connie entering the room brought him back to the present. She had her backpack with her, which she dropped off at the door. The sword Bismuth made her was sticking out of its side. On her arm was a large medical bandage, and on her cheek, a smaller one. Slowly the picture of what exactly was going on started to take shape in Steven's mind, and he wasn't liking how it looked. 

Connie approached him with gentle, calculated steps, and he furrowed his brow in irritation. She didn't have to treat him like a caged animal, the irony of him wearing a collar notwithstanding. 

She stopped a few feet away and softly asked, "How do you feel?" before wincing at asking such a silly question while his mouth was covered. "Hold on a moment, lemme get that off of you first." He had to bend over for her to reach his face, and as she took the cloth off of him, it suddenly occurred to him just how much he towered over her. No wonder she was so nervous. 

He tried to pick his first words carefully, but instead, he just blurted out, "I'm sorry!", his voice sounding much deeper than he expected. 

"You're... sorry?" Connie asked, confused.

"About the bandages, I mean. That's what this is all about isn't it?" He said, holding up both of his arms to show the restraints.

"Oh! No, these injuries aren't from you, well not directly, anyway." She took several steps back. "The handcuffs and collar are for your protection, not mine."

He came closer to her. " _My_ protection? What could I possibly need protection from?" Although he was glad Connie's injuries weren't entirely his fault, the apparent need for him to be protected from something inspired a whole new list of concerns.

"The gems didn't want you to be able to summon your shield or make bubbles. The handcuffs were their idea. Once they're sure you won't try to run again, they'll take them off for good." She watched him intently as she talked, seemingly looking for even the slightest change in his demeanor. "The collar isn't optional though. Either we made you wear that, or we had to rejuvenate your gem, and everyone agreed that was a bad idea." 

"But why do I have to wear the collar? You're not answering the question!" 

"Oh, how do I say this..." she sighed. "We think your gemstone might be... corrupted." She continued to step back, but kept her eyes firmly focused on him.

"Huh?" he asked, though it felt less like a question and more like a statement. He understood what she meant, he just wasn't sure if he was still dreaming or not. More of the picture was clicking into place, and somehow, each new piece made it worse. "No, no, no..." he whined, all the horrible feelings from before flooding back into his mind. "I can't... No, I won't end up like that again." He looked to Connie for reassurance. "Right?"

She hesitated, her hands tracing the cracks in the wall behind her, then in the most confident voice she could muster, replied, "Right."

“Right!” he repeated, a nervous smile spreading across his face. He chose his next actions carefully, closing the gap between himself and Connie with slow, heavy steps. She flinched when he grabbed her, unsure of whether or not his intentions were kind, but as the warmth from his chest wrapped around her, she relaxed and fully embraced him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if I like the ending of this chapter, for some reason it's not sitting right with me (not what happens, I had the ending planned out already, just the execution). Gotta post it though since drafts only stick around for like 30 days before being yeeted into cyberspace.
> 
> The next chapter is pretty long compared to this one so it'll be a while before it's done.


	3. Slightly bewildered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven learns where he is, and meets a new gem.

Steven spent the rest of the first day almost entirely in that same room, sleeping half of the time and the other half sorting through his thoughts. Connie was with him for most of the day, only leaving the room to go to the bathroom or get food for the both of them. She assured him that there wasn't any hurry to dump all of his emotions out for everyone to see right away, and that he could take as much time as he needed to understand his feelings. Whether or not he wanted to vent or just rest was up to him. He decided that for now, he just wanted someone else to be with him.

So they spent the first day together in silence, with Steven mumbling a question or comment here and there and Connie giving an honest, if somewhat vague answer. 

***

On the second day, he finally learned exactly where he was. Thankfully for him, it wasn't Homeworld like he had suspected, but his mother's Leg ship. 

Connie was still asleep when he woke up that morning. He snuck out of the room and wandered the halls, using his powers to make himself float so as to not make any noise. In one of the rooms he passed was a cyan-colored gem going through files on a terminal. As he came up behind her for a closer look, he could see limb-enhancers in place of where her arms would be, but unlike Peridot the rest of her proportions didn't seem incorrect with them on. The files she shuffled through were written in Gem-language, which Steven could only understand a little of. The words "diamond", "poof" (or more accurately dissipate, but he preferred to say poof), "corrupt" and "delete" stood out to him.  _ Are those files about me?  _

His heart skipped a beat when the gem suddenly stopped going through files and closed the terminal. Luckily she didn't turn around to see him, instead going over to a stack of crates and digging through them. She pulled out several chunks of metal that matched his collar and handcuffs. 

"This isn't going to be enough," she grumbled, tossing the chunks haphazardly onto the ground.

He was so busy watching her and trying not to be spotted that he didn't hear Amethyst enter the room. 

"Hey man, you're finally out of bed!" She went to give him a hug before stopping herself. "Is it alright if I give you a hug? Garnet said I had to ask first so... "

Steven nodded, trying not to look as startled as he felt.

She shape-shifted her legs so that she was his height before hugging him. "Now that you're movin' around, you should take a shower. It's been like, over a week since any part of you has seen water."

He chuckled, suddenly very aware of how grimy he felt. "Heh, yeah. A shower would feel nice." 

"Ahem," The cyan-colored gem cleared her throat, waltzing up to the pair with her arms crossed. "How long were you standing there, exactly? Not that I'm upset you're up or anything, since I need to run some more tests but, uh," she shook her head, making the two long tendrils on the back of her head sway, "I was looking through some very old files and they're not all that fun if you know what I mean."

"I was only here a few moments before Amethyst," he lied.

She didn't look very convinced but decided it wasn't worth challenging him over. "Whatever. I've gotta take this stuff to the upper decks anyway." With that, she grabbed a crate of metal chunks and went out the door.

"Do you know what that stuff is for?" he asked Amethyst, curiosity getting the better of him.

She shrugged. "No clue. You'd have to ask Peri, it's nerd stuff. But you can worry about that later! Garnet wants to see you!" Amethyst shrunk her legs back down to their normal length. "Not that she'd admit it, gotta keep up the badass leader look. C'mon, she should be on the bridge," she said, waving him to the door.

He took note of every gem he saw as they made their way through the metallic, pink corridors. The ship was fairly empty, and the few gems he did catch a glimpse of he didn't recognize. Eventually, they passed a room where Peridot was talking to the cyan-colored gem from earlier. He wasn't close enough to hear what they were talking about but he could see a diagram of the collar he was wearing on one of the monitors in the room. Were they planning on making more?

Amethyst noticed him stop and gently pulled the fabric of his pants. "They're busy right now, you can talk to them later."

"Yeah," he said flatly, keeping his gaze on the monitor until it was out of sight.

When they arrived at the bridge, Garnet was the only one there. She was facing the entrance like she had already been expecting them, and with her future vision, that was almost certainly the case.

"I'm glad to see that you're awake Steven," she said, flickering her visor away to look up at him. "Did you sleep well?"

Having to look down to meet her eyes made him realize just how  _ tall  _ he was. Did he grow in his sleep? "As well as I could with these on," he said, showing the restraints and forcing a laugh. "It'll be nice to get these off before I hop in the shower."

"We'll take them off in the house," she said, a distant look in her eyes. 

Steven groaned to himself. He had seen that look many times before; she was checking the future. He had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a pleasant timeline.

***

He shielded his face as they came outside, the sudden transition from the dim interior of the ship to harsh sunlight making his eyes hurt. Strewn across the sand were broken boulders, shards of glass, and chunks of rubble from the beach house. The house itself had a large off-white drape over the front half, the same one they used after their fight with Blue and Yellow two years ago. 

The inside was much cleaner, though that wasn't saying much. While most of the larger signs of destruction had been removed, the house still had a ways to go. There were huge claw marks dug into the wooden floor, the kitchen counter had been completely destroyed, and nearly every door (except the bathroom door, which was probably replaced for when he woke up) was either gone or off its hinges. Next to the bathroom door were a neatly folded stack of clean clothes and towels. 

"Did Pearl fold these?" Steven asked.

Amethyst noticeably flinched at his question, but Garnet just replied, "No. I did."

"Oh, okay," he said, both surprised that just mentioning Pearl got such a harsh reaction and annoyed that once again the gems were keeping something hidden from him. "Where  _ is  _ Pearl anyway? I didn't see her on the ship."

"We can talk about that later. Just worry about yourself for now."

He tried to argue further, but Amethyst cut him off. "Let's get those cuffs off of ya, your arms are probably tired from carrying them around all this time." She pressed the diamond-shaped button on the top of each of them and they clicked open. "That's better, right?" she asked him, pulling them off and handing them to Garnet.

He looked down at his hands in shock, not even registering her question. The same light pink scales that were around his gem also covered his hands, and instead of fingernails, there were large maroon claws. 

"Shit, I thought they were supposed to be back to normal by no-- Oof!" Garnet jabbed Amethyst in her side before she could finish her statement.

Garnet opened her mouth to say something, but he didn't bother sticking around to hear what it was, instead just snatching up the clothes and going into the bathroom without another word. He spent the next several minutes trying, and failing, to calm his breathing.  _ Calm down and focus on getting clean, _ he told himself as he turned on the shower water, but his anxiety only increased when he started taking off his clothes and more scales became visible. 

"Just get it over with Universe," he said to himself, his voice coming out as a low growl, "The sooner you're done the sooner you can put your clothes back on."

He was only in the shower for ten minutes, but it felt like ten hours. He was too tall for the showerhead to reach his hair, so he had to hunch over the entire time. Every new patch of scales and shard of crystal he discovered as he bathed just made him feel worse. Halfway through he turned the hot water off and just used cold water, trying to numb his hands so he couldn't feel as much. By the time he was done he was shivering all over.

While he got his pants and underwear on without issue, his claws tore the shirt as pulled it over his head, leaving four clean cuts down each side. "Damn it!" he yelled, frustrated. "I can't even put on clothes without something going wrong!"

Someone knocked on the door. "Dude, are you alright?" Amethyst called to him.

Steven sighed. "I need another stupid shirt."

She knocked again after a brief pause. He swung open the door just a bit too fast and it banged against the wall, making her jump. "Sorry," he mumbled, "I just -- could you put it on for me? Please?"

Amethyst nodded and helped him put it on. The look in her eyes as she did so made his chest tight. As embarrassing as it would've been, he could handle pity, but Amethyst didn't feel sorry for him.

She looked terrified. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so this was going to be a much longer chapter but it was damn near eight pages before I cut it off, and I still had more to go and that was just too much. This is four full pages. Don't wanna keep ya'll waiting any longer than you have to so...
> 
> Also kudos to Amethyst for getting the first swear for the fic lmao. Speaking of which, Steven is regulated to baby swears. If it hasn’t been said in at least one Disney/Pixar film it's not in his vocab, and no I'm not taking constructive criticism on this.
> 
> I will take constructive criticism on the tags though cuz I have no fucking clue which ones to use. I've always been really bad at tagging my visual art and that also extends to my writing, which wouldn't be too bad if this site didn't rely so heavily on them. If you've got any recommendations, don’t hesitate to let me know.


	4. Surrendering to despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The third day is always the hardest."

The third day was one of the hardest. He couldn't sleep at all the previous night; every time he tried, he was only greeted with nightmares of twisted, unnatural hallways, giant claws, and unintelligible screams. 

So, he spent the night and early morning exploring through the ship. Most of the doors were locked, and since his hands were covered (he had to wear the cuffs when he was alone) he couldn't unlock them. He was on his way to the bridge for the third time when he bumped into the cyan-colored gem from the previous day.

"What the hell are you still doing up? I dunno much about humans but you're supposed to rest like eight hours each Earth cycle, right?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. It was the first time in three days someone greeted him in a way that wasn’t fearful or worried, though it was hard to call annoyance an improvement.

"Yeah, I uh, I couldn't sleep." His eyes wandered to the tablet she was holding. "What were those diagrams you were looking at yesterday?"

She clicked her tongue and leaned against the wall. "I can't tell you that. Well, I could, but you wouldn't like it."

"What I don't like," he snarled, "is people keeping secrets from me."

The gem just waved her hand at him, unphased by his tone. "You better calm down Meatbag, unless you wanna end up looking and sounding more like a dog than you already do."

"My name is Steven, not Meatbag."

"And mine is Chrysoprase, what of it?" She looked like she was going to say something else snarky, but stopped once she looked at his collar. "Alright, I guess I'll quit messing with ya for now. It's not like I get a lot of opportunities to tease a Diamond."

Steven rolled his eyes. "Are you gonna show me or not?"

Chrysoprase ran the idea through her head a few times before replying, "Yeah I guess a little explanation could do you some good. But if that green clod asks, you didn't hear shit from me, got it?"

She led him to the room she and Peridot were in before and pulled up several diagrams on the monitors, all of them in Gem-language. The strong scent of metal from the piles of crates stacked all over the room made Steven’s nose twitch.

"Peri and I have been working on upgrading your collar. You know what it does, right?" 

"I think so," he said, nodding, "Connie said I had to wear it because my gemstone was corrupted. It stops the corruption from getting worse, right?"

"Well not exactly." She made the collar's diagram bigger until it was the only one visible. "The collar is preventative, or the one you have on used to be, but in your case that by itself wouldn't help much. The original ones were designed for gems that showed early signs of corruption, back before gems could dissipate to keep their emotions in check. It's more of a suppressor now. If we just used the unmodified version, you probably wouldn't even be able to talk to me."

Her explanation raised several questions. "Original collars? What exactly did you do to this one? How is it a suppressor? And there was a point where gems couldn't poof? I don't und--" He was cut off from his flurry of questions by Chrysoprase's fingers covering his mouth.

"Stars, and I thought Blue Quartz never shut up," she said, slowly pulling her floating fingers back to her arm, "Okay, lets try this again. Gems could always dissipate, or ‘poof’ as you like to say, if their bodies took too much damage right? But poofing from feeling something too strongly is a ‘newer’ feature. Way back in the old days," she explained, her fingers floating idly around as she talked, "The really old days I mean, that failsafe didn't exist, and gems were far more susceptible to corruption because their emotions could fester. That's where the collars come in. They hold a gem's proper physical form together. It's just a temporary fix though, because the worse the gem's mental state gets, the less clear they think and more monster-like they behave, regardless of how their bodies look. That's why gems started getting built to poof before they could focus on their feelings long enough to start corrupting. Do you follow?"

"I think I understand," he replied, going back to when he first presented Centi to Yellow, and her attempt to cure Centi just resulting in a broken mind trapped within a fixed body.

"Alright, so the collar you have on now works differently. Since you're half human, we can take more drastic measures. That collar suppresses all of your gems abilities, and by extension, it's ability to warp your body. But there's a problem." She leaned against the wall and pinched her nose before continuing. "You're not just any gem, you're a Diamond, and an unpredictable one at that. That thing is nowhere near strong enough to keep your gemstone in check for much longer, and even if it was, you could break it off too easy. I need to find a stronger material and make a more powerful suppressor, or we've got to cure the corruption at its root, and I have a feeling the second option isn't happening anytime soon."

"A _Diamond_ ," he chuckled darkly, "Isn't that just great?"

Chrysoprase froze, her expression dire upon realizing her mistake. “I didn’t mean it like that, honest. Listen to me, there’s nothing wro--”

“No! You listen to me!” He shouted at her, his eyes filled with rage. “Do you think I’m stupid? That I don’t know what’s going on here?”

“Steven yo--”

“I see the way you all look at me, how you all walk on eggshells around me, how everyone cringes whenever I mention Pearl,” he continued, his hands curling into fists inside the restraints, “Her gem is probably broken into a million pieces. Jasper wasn’t enough, I had to shatter her too!”

“That’s no--”

“But you all still keep me around, have me stay in this damn ship to keep me away from the warp pad, chained up like an animal.” The monitors flickered with static. “Somehow, I tricked all of you into actually thinking I can be a good person, that there’s some part of me worth salvaging! _What an amazing lie that was!”_

“Hey! Kid, look, you’ve got the wrong idea!” Chrysoprase threw her hands in the air, exasperated. “I don’t think you’re a lost cause, but if you keep this up, you’re gonna be.” She picked up a flat piece of metal from one of the crates and held it up for him to see his reflection.

Steven’s blood went cold. Peeking through his hair were the tips of two crystalline horns. 

“We don’t have much longer to figure this out, but it’s clear your friends care about you a lot and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to help you,” she reassured him. 

He kept staring at his reflection as pink jolts of energy sparked from his handcuffs. “N-no… I can’t...” he wheezed, his whole body shaking. 

Chrysoprase dropped the metal sheet and inched towards him, dread rising in her chest. “Wait a minute, it’ll be okay,” she said, trying to calm his nerves before it was too late, “Just try to breathe, and don’t --”

Much to her dismay, a wall of pink hexagonal tiles rose from the floor, and before she could stop him from running, Steven was gone.

He blindly ran through the corridors, not knowing or caring where he was going. He went into the first open door he came across, another pink wall rising up behind him. The crackles of energy around the cuffs increased as he paced around the small, dimly lit room, muttering, “ _I can’t end up like that again_ ,” to himself on repeat. He made several circuits around the room, not noticing his gradual increase in size until he hit his head on a low-hanging bar. 

“Gah! What was that?!” he exclaimed, rubbing his forehead with his arms, the scales on them just making it hurt more. He swung at the bar in frustration, breaking off the cuffs and tearing the bar from the ceiling in one swift motion. Almost immediately he felt remorseful and pushed both the bar and the cuffs behind a stack of crates, as if making them harder to find would remedy his actions. 

“What am I gonna do now?” he whined, his voice heavy and distorted, “What if I shatter someone else?” 

He curled up into a ball behind the crates, every possible string of destructive scenarios playing on loop in his mind. He stayed like that for what seemed like hours, terrified that any further action he might take would only end up in someone else getting hurt, or worse, killed.

By the time Chrysoprase found him, Amethyst and Garnet alongside her, it was almost noon. She waved the two into the room, gesturing to the only remaining light source; a faint, pink glow from behind several crates.

"I didn't mean to upset him so much," she mumbled sheepishly, "I should've listened to you guys and kept my mouth shut."

Garnet rested her hand on Chryso's shoulder. "This isn't all on you. We shouldn't have kept so much hidden from him in the first place."

Steven peered out from behind the crates upon hearing their voices, despair etched on his face. "S-stay... back..." His speech was slow and staggered, the thoughts in his head getting harder and harder to translate into words.

"It's alright, Steven," Garnet said softly as she advanced towards him, "we just want to help."

He dug his claws into the floor, the grating sound of screeching metal making the three gems cover their ears. _GetbackGetbackGetback, stop it you're going to ( ~~KILL)~~ them, JUST LEAVE ME **A L O N E**. _His thoughts came in rapid-fire, overlayed bursts, and he couldn't keep up. The ground below him felt like it was shifting.

"We just wanna talk, dude!" Amethyst called to him, holding up something in her hand. 

" _ **NO!**_ " he roared, a deafening, inhuman sound that dented the floor and walls. "G-GO. AWAY." Flashes of blue, red, purple, and iridescent gem shards cycled endlessly through his head, and tears welled up in his eyes. He tried his best to warn them, to convince them that he wasn't safe to be around, but between the endless scrambled thoughts, breathless sobs and his now gravelly, distorted voice the only thing that came out was, "P-pe... Pearl..."

"Pearl is fine, Steven, she's right here." Garnet stepped aside to let Amethyst by her. "Show him."  
  
Amethyst ran up to the pink barrier and banged on it until Steven looked at her. She opened her hand and revealed Pearl's gemstone, perfectly smooth and halfway wrapped in cloth. The barrier dropped and he half-walked, half-crawled towards it, the monstrous aspects of his appearance slowly melting away. He hovered both hands over it as if it might break in two with the slightest touch, but when she handed the gemstone to him, relief washed over his entire body.

Maybe things would be ok after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original end notes got deleted AHHHHHHHHHHH okay, one more time!
> 
> There's a lot to cover so I'll try to just sum everything up:
> 
> \- Chrysoprase is an OC of mine that wasn't supposed to get quite this much "screen time" so to speak, but as I was writing the chapter it just sorta happened. That being said, this is the most dialogue she'll probably ever get. I would've used Peridot (with way less dismissive and snarky dialogue, obviously) but she's not nearly old enough to be so knowledgable about the collars and anyone else who would be doesn’t have any business being in the story this early or is M.I.A. right now.
> 
> \- The whole thing with the collar is based on a theory by the Roundtable about gems poofing as a corruption failsafe. I’ll be fully transparent and say that before writing this chapter I didn't really have a good explanation of how the collar worked or why. (Obviously, there's a lot of headcanons I had to make to accommodate for it but it's not too important to this particular story outside of coming up with an excuse for Steven to wear a collar).
> 
> \- Sorry, but also not sorry for blue-balling about whether or not Pearl was shattered, but now you know :P (Though depending on your inference skills you could figure out she was fine before the last paragraph).
> 
> \- I can now check the "he growled" cliche off my checklist, and yeah it's cringey af (hence Chryso's "sounding like a dog" comment) but it felt appropriate given the context.


	5. Glimpses of hope in trying times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven talks to Connie about how he's been feeling.

"I don't think I can do this."

Steven stared at the warp pad, unable to take another step, his backpack in one hand and Connie's hand in the other. 

"It's alright Steven, we can always go another day if you're not ready yet," she reassured him.

"I mean... It's just that, well," he stammered, trying to gather his thoughts, "Bismuth has done so much y'know? Little Homeworld, the van, the house  _ multiple  _ times. The least I can do is say--" He dramatically clasped his hands together and continued, sarcasm dripping from every word,"--  _ 'Thanks for fixing all the stuff I keep breaking!'  _ to her in person, instead of playing a game of Telephone with the gems."

Connie frowned. "You shouldn't--"

"Talk about myself like that,” he finished, “I know, I know. Baby steps, right?"

"Yeah, baby steps." She took both of his hands, the skin on them smooth and fair rather than the harsh, glowing pink they had been a few days ago, and gently ran her thumbs across the back of them. "Why don't we go to the beach instead? Bismuth can wait."

Steven looked at the warp pad, then down at his hands, then at Connie. "Sure."

***

In stark contrast to the weather earlier that morning, the sky was covered in thick, dark clouds and the beach with a layer of fog. Connie simply glared up at the clouds and groaned, annoyance plain on her face. "When did Beach City become the Midwest? There wasn't a cloud in sight before. Whatever."

Steven just shrugged. He actually liked the gloomy weather; overcast skies meant fewer people. The more time he spent alone, the less he wanted to be around everyone else. Well, everyone except her, that was.

They found a spot in front of the house that was clear of debris and rolled out a blanket. While it was hardly visible, the rhythmic crashes and salty tinge in the air were more than enough to make the ocean's presence known, and in tandem with the fog and monochrome sky, it sent Steven into a contemplative trance. He sat on the blanket tapping his fingers in a song-like sequence across his legs, quietly humming the melody, the world outside his own thoughts completely off his radar.

Between cleaning the beach (which he insisted he do by himself), fixing the house, talking to Peridot and Chrysoprase about the collars, corruption, and glowing, the gems and Greg fawning over him all day, him checking around the clock to see if Pearl would reform soon, and the perpetual struggle to get a  ~~ nightmare ~~ dream-free dose of sleep, he felt like he didn’t have much time to really process what had happened, and more importantly, where he was going to go from here.

A soft tug on his sleeve brought him back to reality. Connie was holding out a sandwich to him. "Did you hear me? I asked if you were hungry."

He took it from her almost robotically, not even looking in her direction. "Thanks."

"Is something wrong? It's not about Bismuth is it?"

"I'm fine."

"Steven," She rested her hand on his thigh, and his whole body tensed up. "Steven, look at me."

He forced his eyes to meet hers and instantly regretted it. She wasn't just looking at him, she was reading him like a book, the same way she did when he woke up in his mother's ship, and in the house a week before that, and over video call several weeks before that. Unlike the gems, or even Greg, a simple 'I'm okay' wasn't good enough for Connie, and while he really appreciated that she wasn't the kind of person to take no for an answer, every now and then it really bit him in the ass.

"Is something wrong?" she asked again, the perfect mix of loving and threatening that only she could manage.

Steven swallowed a knot in his throat that he didn’t even realize was there. “There’s just… a lot going on. I’m not sure where to start.”

“Start from the beginning.”

He was worried she would say that. 

“The very beginning?” 

“A week ago, when you woke up in the ship,” she clarified, her gaze not quite as harsh as before.

Okay, that was a better place to start from. He could try to put that much into words.

“I was terrified.” He shook his head. “No, I  _ am  _ terrified.” 

“Of who? The gems?” She paused between sentences, not long enough to be awkward but enough that it was noticeable. “The Diamonds?”

“No,” he said in that deflective, half-hearted laugh he was almost certain was a dead giveaway by now, “It’s not them I’m worried about.” He started tapping his fingers again in the same song-like rhythm, but the beats were faster and less organized. “It’s me. That’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past week and a half. The first thing I did when I woke up was look at my reflection. At my eyes.”

“To see if your pupils were diamonds.” She didn’t say it like a question, but a fact. 

The tapping became more erratic. “Yeah.” Steven took a deep breath before he continued. “I’m scared that I’m going to hurt someone -- hurt more people than I already have. When I saw that Pearl wasn’t with you guys I just  _ knew _ something bad happened. I was so convinced that she was gone, and that this time I couldn’t fix it, and I was so angry at myself for hurting her, for _shattering_ her. I'm glad that she'll be okay after all, but I hated feeling like that, and I hate that I can’t look at myself in a mirror without being scared of what I see.” He buried his face in his hands, trying to hide from the unnatural heat building up across the bridge of his nose. “I hate that I can’t even talk about this without it feeling like the sky is falling on top of me!”

Connie pulled his hands away from his face, her eyes reflecting its pink glow. “It’ll be alright. Just take deep breaths and focus on me.”

The glow faded as he whispered, “ _ And I hate that bandage on your face. _ ”

“What?” she mumbled, bewildered, but he was already peeling it off. He leaned forward and gently kissed the half-closed wound, and despite the usual sparkle-filled light show of his healing kisses being present, it didn’t go away. He grumbled and tried again. Still nothing. Why wasn’t it working?

_ That collar suppresses all of your gem’s abilities, and by extension, its ability to warp your body. _

Of course. It was the collar, it had to be.

He traced the edge of it with his fingers.  _ You could break it off too easy,  _ Chrysoprase had said. She was right. Just a little bit of force from him would snap it in two. And that idea scared him.

“I have to go,” he said, already getting up.

“Go where? You’re just gonna kiss me twice and then walk away without another word?” She hopped up alongside him. “Not if I can help it.” 

“I have to talk to Peridot. I’ll be back soon enough.”

“Now hold on a minute,” she protested, hands pressed firmly against his chest, “If you’re going back up there, then I’m coming with you.”

“You really don’t ha--”

“That wasn’t a suggestion,” she said firmly, looking less like a teenage girl and more like a warrior ready for battle.

Steven chuckled to himself, knowing full well this wasn’t a battle he could win. “Okay then. Let’s go.”

***

It took some searching, but eventually, the pair found Peridot on the floor in the ship’s engine room, surrounded by crates and boxes of blue-ish metal, wires, cables, dials (one of which Steven was certain came from his washing machine), and tools of both human and gem origin. She didn’t seem to be aware of them when they entered, too preoccupied with the half-constructed device in front of her, only acknowledging them when Steven grabbed the washing machine dial and put it in his pocket.

“Hey!” she snapped, reaching for the dial just a moment too late, “I need that!”

“You can’t keep stealing parts from the appliances in my house, Peri. But forget about that, we need to talk.” 

Peridot froze up as if she were a child who got caught out late past her bedtime. “This isn’t about the microwave, is it? It was an accident, honest!”

“The…  _ microwave…  _ ?” He sighed, rubbing his forehead while Connie stifled a laugh, “What did you -- you know what, nevermind. We can sort that out later. I wanted to talk about the collar.”

“Oh, that,” she said, relieved, “What’s the issue then?”

He pushed some of the clutter out of the way and sat crossed-legged on the floor, and Connie followed suit. “Is there a way to make it, I dunno, weaker? Or maybe put some kind of toggle on it so I can turn it off?”

Peridot raised an eyebrow. “You want it to be  _ less _ effective? Why?”

“I want to be able to use my healing powers, but as long as I have this on they won’t work,” he explained.

“But no one is hurt. Any gems that get cracked can just go to Rose’s fountain until further notice.”

“Connie is hurt!” he cried, desperation seeping into his voice.

“It’s okay, Steven, it’ll heal on its own.” Connie reached for his arm, but he pulled away.

“It _isn’t_ okay!” He ruffled his hair with both hands, trying to release his frustration before he started that awful pink glowing again. “I shouldn’t be hurting people I care about.” It didn’t matter how small the injury was, it was his fault.

“I already told you that I didn’t get these because of you,” she reminded.

“You said they weren’t directly from me,” he corrected. While his memory hadn’t been the best as of late, that much he remembered clearly. No amount of avoidant language would change that he was in some way responsible for her injuries.

“For fuck's sake, Steven,” she huffed, crossing her arms, “I know you’re upset but we can’t put you at risk over a cut on my cheek!”

Peridot nodded in agreement. “Taking the collar off at this stage of your recovery is far too dangerous.”

“Just for a moment!” He pleaded, even though he knew what the answer would be. “All I need is 30, 40 seconds tops!”

“Sorry,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “but I’m afraid the answer is no, especially for something so irrelevant.”

Steven got up and starting pacing around the room, pausing every now and then as if he were going to say something in protest, but he would soon abandon the thought and go back to pacing. He was being irrational. He knew it didn’t make sense to be so upset over something so minor, but knowing it was stupid for him to be upset didn’t make him feel any better. 

Finally, he took a deep breath and sighed, “You’re right. Both of you are. I shouldn’t have even asked for something so selfish.” He held out his hand to Connie. “C’mon, let’s go back to the beach.”

She looked up at him with an expression resting somewhere between confused and concerned, but took his hand without comment.

  
  


***

  
  


The fog outside began to clear as they made their way across the beach and back to the blanket. Steven fidgeted with the dial in his jacket pocket with one hand and continued tapping the previous tune on his thigh with the other, both in an effort to keep them from shaking and to keep them away from his neck. He could tell Connie was still watching him, or more accurately, examining him, without even looking her way, but he still risked a glance.

To his surprise, she didn’t chastise him. “I didn’t know you liked Al Bowlly.”

“Huh?”

She pointed to his still tapping fingers. “Heartaches. That’s the music you’ve been humming and tapping to all day, isn’t it?”

“Oh. Yeah, I found some old albums while I was cleaning the house yesterday. I thought they were Dad’s at first, but when I asked him about it he said he found them in Amythest’s room. But where did you hear it?”

“One of his songs is in The Shining. I liked how it sounded and looked up more of his music online,” she explained, twirling her hair in her fingers.

Steven nodded. He had heard of the movie several times, but never watched it. Trying to convince Pearl that he was old enough to watch R-rated movies was like pulling teeth. “Could I watch it with you sometime?”

Connie stopped walking and dramatically gasped. “You’ve never seen The Shining? Oh, we’ve got to watch it ASAP!” She broke out in a sprint, and while Steven really wasn’t in the mood for a movie, her enthusiasm was contagious and he soon found himself giggling and chasing after her.

By the time he caught up to her, she was already shoving the blanket into his backpack. “It’s such a good movie, easily one of the best horror films ever made,” she said, eyes beaming, “And even if you don’t like the story that much you’ll love the soundtrack!”

“I’m sure I will,” he chuckled, happy to see her legitimately cheerful for the first time in weeks. 

Someone called out to them from the house’s balcony. “Connie! Steven!”  His mood dropped upon seeing who it was. Pearl waved at them as the ends of the bandana around her hair flapped in the wind. “Oh, I haven’t seen you two in ages, it’s so good to be back!”

Connie excitedly grabbed the backpack and went to greet Pearl, but turned back around when she realized Steven wasn’t following her. He was still standing in the same spot, his body completely frozen except for his now shaking hands. 

He should’ve been happy, ecstatic even, that Pearl had reformed. Instead, he felt nothing but anxiety, and he couldn’t understand why. “I’m sorry, I just can’t…” he wheezed, backing away from the house, “I can’t stay here!” 

He ran from the house, back in the direction of the ship. Steven could hear Connie behind him, shouting at him to stop, but he kept going until he was certain he wouldn’t be able to see the balcony. 

“What the hell has gotten into you?!” she yelled, sounding more worried than angry.

“I don’t know.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I just don’t know, okay?” 

Connie sighed, exhausted. “I really want to help you, I really do, but I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.” She stood there silent for several heartbeats, brows furrowed and arms crossed, staring at the sand reluctantly the way one might stare at a particularly foul-tasting pill. “You can’t just say and do all this crazy stuff for no reason. You’re going to end up hurting yourself!”

“It’s not for no reason!” He could feel that dreaded, alien heat spread across his nose and cheeks, but he didn’t care anymore. “There  _ is _ a reason, I just don’t know what it is!” He plopped down to the ground, leaving a hexagonal pattern in the sand. She sat down next to him.

His eyes scanned the beach, pausing on each piece of debris. It had been three days since he took on the chore of cleaning all of the destruction, and he’d hardly made a dent. Normally it’d be a quick task, especially with his gem powers, but each time he went to discard a board of wood or shard of glass, an overwhelming amount of dread would overcome him, and he would spend several minutes just trying to pick it up. 

It was ridiculous, all of it was. Steven knew his behavior over the past week didn’t make any sense, but that was because his feelings didn’t make sense. And they likely never would as long as he still had gaps in his memory.

“I want to know what happened,” he said, still looking over the beach, “after I came back from Little Homeworld.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this came out way more intense than I planned? I had "INSERT FLUFF HERE" on the outline for the beginning of the chapter and for some reason I'm incapable of writing fluff. So the whole thing is much more depressing than I wanted it to be. Sorry 'bout that. It's also longer than the previous chapters, about 7 pages, but looks so much shorter when it's pasted into here. I've been looking at the word out for other fics and based on their length and chapter count, their average chapter length is way longer than mine, so I guess 7 pages isn't as much as i thought.
> 
> Regardless though I think the writing for this chapter is some of the best I've done so far. I don't think I can write for Connie as well as @universallywriting on Tumblr but I think I came close enough. Might go back and make a couple of changes to older chapters though cuz the more I read over them the less I like them. 
> 
> The inclusion of Heartaches as the song Steven was humming isn't really all that important by the way; it's mostly just guilt by association. (Plus it's been stuck in my head for like a week. Song's a bop.) The same applies to The Shining, which funnily enough I've never seen. It's not that I'm not allowed to watch it (I'm more than old enough!) I'm simply not a big horror movie fan.


End file.
